How to Reach Your Goals with a Science-Backed Tool | Dr. Emily Balcetis & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | what's the link between vision and motivation and how can we leverage that in order to better
00:00:08.080 | reach our goals?
00:00:09.080 | Totally.
00:00:10.080 | So, you know, we started thinking about what are the goals that are most important to people
00:00:13.460 | that they struggle with the most.
00:00:15.640 | So we asked hundreds, thousands of people what their new year's resolutions are.
00:00:20.000 | We looked to all the other polls that do the same kind of work.
00:00:23.560 | And regardless of where you look or who you ask or when you ask it, people's number one
00:00:27.140 | goal is something related to their health, right?
00:00:30.120 | To lose weight, to exercise more, to get out, get more steps for mental well-being, physical
00:00:35.280 | well-being.
00:00:37.200 | And that's like the number one goal every January 1st.
00:00:41.320 | So if we were able to accomplish that goal, you'd think it would drop a little bit in
00:00:45.280 | the rankings.
00:00:46.280 | But it doesn't because it's really hard.
00:00:48.280 | So we thought, I wonder if there's a way for us to make some progress on that, on helping
00:00:52.140 | people to exercise better, more often, stick to it longer, and make some progress there.
00:00:57.620 | We know diets don't work.
00:00:59.180 | And why don't diets work?
00:01:00.180 | For the same reason that that self-talk doesn't work, is that, you know, we go in it full
00:01:05.420 | bore, hardcore, and it requires a major commitment and effort to a lifestyle change.
00:01:11.080 | So again, we were looking for something that might be easier than that, that could produce
00:01:14.780 | big, big payoff, right?
00:01:17.220 | That's the golden ticket.
00:01:18.220 | It's something that requires less effort for a bigger payoff.
00:01:20.940 | So one of the first things that I did was go over to Brooklyn to this old armory building.
00:01:27.340 | It used to be a military armory space.
00:01:29.860 | Yeah.
00:01:30.860 | I think I know that building.
00:01:31.860 | Yeah.
00:01:32.860 | It's a beautiful building now that houses a lot of businesses, right?
00:01:34.500 | With plants on the walls?
00:01:35.500 | Yeah, there's businesses.
00:01:36.500 | There's a couple of armories all around the boroughs here, around New York City.
00:01:41.260 | And the one in Brooklyn in particular is now YMCA, right?
00:01:44.820 | So it's a family YMCA that's within a beautiful old red brick building that used to be a military
00:01:49.700 | establishment long, long ago.
00:01:52.380 | And what's really cool is that one winter afternoon, somebody had invited me, a physical
00:01:58.660 | therapist said, "Hey, you should come out and check out what's happening here with your
00:02:01.460 | interest in exercise and trying to find new ways of helping people, new tactics that they
00:02:05.700 | can add to their tool belt.
00:02:07.460 | I think you're going to find some interesting people that are working out there."
00:02:10.060 | So I showed up.
00:02:11.060 | I look around.
00:02:12.060 | There's families.
00:02:13.060 | There's new moms.
00:02:14.060 | There's kids that are – moms trying to get kids to burn off some winter energy that
00:02:18.860 | they have.
00:02:19.860 | There's people that look like they're just there for their – every couple of days going
00:02:22.940 | out for a run.
00:02:23.940 | There's some people that look like they're training with a team.
00:02:26.060 | And that's who this physical therapist introduced me to, was the coach of this team.
00:02:30.420 | There's a bunch of people that were sitting down on the ground, and I would be hard-pressed
00:02:34.780 | to know who's the high school student that's in this group and then who, as it turns out,
00:02:38.580 | are some of the fastest runners in the world.
00:02:41.820 | One of the people that was in the last Olympics before I showed up won the gold medal for
00:02:45.900 | the 400-meter, and from the looks of them – I mean, of course, their bodies are in
00:02:51.500 | better shape than mine, but there's nothing so – of course, they're not wearing their
00:02:56.260 | medals.
00:02:57.260 | There's nothing pretentious about how they're walking around or anything like that that
00:02:59.220 | would lead me to know, like, "This person's amazing," and they probably have some insight
00:03:02.300 | that I don't have.
00:03:03.940 | So once I got introduced to them and knew who are these people that were part of this
00:03:08.300 | pretty elite training team that happened to work out at this family gym, I had the chance
00:03:15.320 | to talk with them about, "What strategies do you use?"
00:03:17.720 | Now, I am not an elite runner, and having recently had a baby, I'm not really a runner
00:03:22.860 | right now at all, but I thought when these people are running, I bet they are, like,
00:03:27.660 | hyper-aware of everything that's going on in their surroundings.
00:03:30.660 | Where are they relative to the competition, what's happening in their peripheral vision,
00:03:34.940 | what's going on on the side, who's behind them, who's in front of them.
00:03:37.980 | They probably have this, like, master sense, this master visual plan at any point in time,
00:03:42.900 | and that's what probably makes them elite.
00:03:45.380 | So when I started asking them, "Is that the case?
00:03:48.500 | Do you really pay attention to what's in your surroundings, what's behind you, what's on
00:03:51.500 | the side?"
00:03:52.500 | They said, "No."
00:03:53.500 | Like, all of them said, "No."
00:03:54.980 | And sometimes when I do do that, it's a mistake.
00:03:57.020 | It doesn't work for me.
00:03:58.320 | So that was surprising.
00:03:59.320 | It totally went against my intuition about what they do that likely contributes to their
00:04:03.740 | success.
00:04:04.740 | What they said instead was that they are hyper-focused.
00:04:07.940 | They assume this narrowed focus of attention, almost like a spotlight is shining on a target.
00:04:13.660 | Now, when they're running a short distance, that target might literally be the finish
00:04:16.900 | line, the line that they're trying to cross.
00:04:18.300 | If it's a longer distance, they set sub-goals, like, you know, the person, the shorts on
00:04:22.780 | the person up ahead that they're trying to beat.
00:04:24.660 | Or they choose some sort of stable landmark, like a sign that they would pass by.
00:04:30.500 | And like a spotlight is shining just on that, or, like, they have blinders on the sides
00:04:33.840 | of their face.
00:04:34.840 | That's all they're paying attention to.
00:04:36.300 | It's a really narrowed scope of attention.
00:04:40.580 | And that was a strategy that all of these elite athletes said that they used.
00:04:44.180 | And those that were better rather than slower were ones that used it more.
00:04:49.520 | And I thought, "Oh, that's something we can play with."
00:04:51.420 | Right?
00:04:52.420 | Like, they are elite and they are accomplished, but that visual strategy isn't necessarily
00:04:56.500 | something that you have to be in the perfect physical condition to be able to adopt.
00:05:00.400 | And so I wonder, can that help the rest of us who aren't competing for an Olympic gold
00:05:04.740 | and who have no chance of ever getting one, but who want to exercise better, have a better
00:05:09.380 | time doing it, and maintain a commitment to that exercise goal that they might have that
00:05:13.620 | they might otherwise, you know, by February or March be giving up on if they had set it
00:05:18.740 | at the beginning of January?
00:05:20.880 | So that's really where the work started was, you know, what you might call, like, focus
00:05:24.980 | groups or case studies of these incredible athletes.
00:05:29.580 | And then we did other studies looking at, you know, people who aren't Olympic athletes
00:05:32.780 | but who are competitive New York road runners.
00:05:37.740 | And how are they running in races?
00:05:39.260 | And what we found is that those people who have better pace, faster pace, better time,
00:05:43.540 | they use that narrowed strategy more often than this more expansive or, you know, open
00:05:48.600 | scope of attention.
00:05:50.660 | And there seemed to be a correlation between that.
00:05:52.620 | Better performance among a wider swath of hundreds of runners who are doing it competitively
00:05:58.320 | but still, you know, could be like the person that you're sitting next to in the office
00:06:02.140 | or yourself, right?
00:06:04.300 | And the more often that they did it, and the more consistently they had adopted that, that
00:06:09.620 | technique of the narrowed focus of attention, it seemed that they were doing better in their
00:06:13.340 | runs.
00:06:15.280 | So then we started thinking, like, okay, what about people who aren't competitive runners?
00:06:20.380 | What about, like, my mom?
00:06:22.700 | Can she do that?
00:06:23.700 | Or me when I'm trying to get back on the bandwagon and exercise more?
00:06:27.380 | Is this a tactic we can teach people?
00:06:29.300 | The answer is yes.
00:06:30.840 | You can tell people about what these Olympic athletes are doing.
00:06:33.660 | You can tell them about what the New York road runners are doing.
00:06:37.860 | And just using the same language that I just used with you, right?
00:06:40.420 | Imagine that there's a spotlight shining just on a target.
00:06:43.300 | Choose something up ahead, the stop sign two blocks up that you can just see.
00:06:48.660 | And you know, imagine that you have blinders on so that you're not really paying attention
00:06:52.260 | to the people that are passing by or the buildings or the garbage cans or the trucks that are
00:06:56.220 | on the road.
00:06:57.580 | You know, tune those out and focus in on that target until you hit it.
00:07:01.780 | And then choose another one.
00:07:02.780 | Right?
00:07:03.780 | Sort of recalibrate.
00:07:04.780 | Choose the next goal.
00:07:05.780 | And so we would test, like, can people do that?
00:07:08.020 | I mean, if you're listening right now, you probably are imagining that experience, too.
00:07:12.100 | And the answer is yes.
00:07:13.100 | Like, I can imagine that.
00:07:14.100 | I know what those words mean.
00:07:15.100 | And I can do that.
00:07:16.340 | And our work found that, too, that people can do that.
00:07:18.400 | We have them say out loud, what is it that's captured your attention?
00:07:21.860 | And of course, sometimes something in the periphery, like movement, captures our gaze
00:07:25.180 | and we're pulled there for an instant, but then we can refocus up again and adopt that
00:07:30.220 | narrowed attention.
00:07:31.220 | Now, one of the first studies that we did was teach that strategy and juxtapose or compare
00:07:36.880 | it against a group that we said, just look around naturally.
00:07:40.420 | You know, you might see that finish line up ahead and there's things on the periphery.
00:07:44.120 | Whatever your eyes want to do, whatever you think is going to work best, feel free to
00:07:46.820 | do that and tell us what you're looking at.
00:07:48.620 | Then we gave them a finish line.
00:07:50.220 | We created sort of, you know, an exercise that's moderately challenging but possible.
00:07:55.260 | We put ankle weights on that accounted for about 15% of their body weight, told them
00:07:59.300 | to lift their knees up, sort of high stepping to a finish line.
00:08:02.740 | So this would be challenging for them to do, but we said, you know, it's an indicator of
00:08:07.900 | overall health and fitness.
00:08:10.740 | Some of these people had narrowed their focus of attention and some were just looking more
00:08:14.060 | expansively or naturally.
00:08:16.900 | And what we found is that those people that we trained, just everyday normal people doing
00:08:20.620 | this moderately challenging exercise, they were able to move 27% faster.
00:08:25.760 | They could do the exercise more quickly and they said it hurt 17% less.
00:08:30.860 | The exercise was exactly the same for all the people.
00:08:32.940 | We set the weight and we set the distance.
00:08:35.980 | It was in, you know, our lab space, so it was a constrained environment.
00:08:40.020 | Everybody was in the same sort of circumstance, but yet their experience was really different.
00:08:44.740 | We helped them to move faster, burn calories at a higher rate, exercise more efficiently.
00:08:49.780 | The amount of time they put in is going to produce a better physical outcome and it also
00:08:55.300 | didn't hurt them.
00:08:56.300 | They're saying it doesn't hurt as much.
00:08:58.540 | So we were really excited about that because it meant that this strategy, we could use
00:09:02.340 | it on people who are not elite athletes.
00:09:05.100 | It could be easily adopted, a quick training session, can teach people to look at the world
00:09:09.740 | in a different way.
00:09:10.940 | Again, this narrowed attention was different than whatever they do naturally, the comparison
00:09:15.900 | group.
00:09:17.060 | But it had a big outcome.
00:09:18.060 | It had a big difference on the way that they were engaged in the exercise.
00:09:21.780 | It was like some of the first work that we did and then since then we've done dozens
00:09:26.380 | more studies to look at, well, what happens with that and what else can we do with playing
00:09:30.500 | around with this?
00:09:31.500 | Yeah, those are impressive differences as a consequence of narrowing visual attention.
00:09:36.180 | A couple of questions about the actual practice of narrowing attention.
00:09:39.640 | Is there any indication of whether or not subjects are constantly updating their visual
00:09:46.060 | attention?
00:09:47.060 | So for instance, if let's say the goal line is in view, literally from the beginning,
00:09:52.540 | I could imagine just holding visual attention on the goal line.
00:09:56.180 | But if it's an oval track or it's a trajectory along a trail or through a city, how often
00:10:03.580 | do you think they are updating their visual aperture and setting a visual goal?
00:10:10.660 | And I could imagine that there's some energetic expense to that, meaning you wouldn't want
00:10:18.100 | to do every crack on the sidewalk unless those cracks on the sidewalk were very far apart.
00:10:22.980 | Because I think at some point that itself would be exhausting.
00:10:26.900 | So is there an optimal strategy or a semi-optimal strategy?
00:10:31.980 | Yeah, so those Olympic athletes that we started by interviewing, they tended to be sprinters.
00:10:37.380 | They were more often sprinters, short-distance sprinters.
00:10:39.860 | So when they said, yes, I narrow in more than I assume an expansive focus, that's because
00:10:45.060 | they're not going that far.
00:10:46.900 | They have to do it as fast as humanly possible, but they're not going that far.
00:10:50.660 | And so we started asking that question too about, well, wouldn't that be tiring?
00:10:54.340 | And the answer is yes.
00:10:55.620 | So when we start to look at, well, people who aren't sprinters, who are accomplished
00:10:58.380 | but who are more long-distance runners, that's what we find that they do, is that they're
00:11:04.460 | using that narrowed attention strategy strategically.
00:11:07.780 | And it increases in use.
00:11:09.940 | They use it more often as the race progresses.
00:11:12.540 | And they really start to do this major switch at about the halfway point of, say, a 10-kilometer
00:11:19.100 | run.
00:11:20.100 | So people who are seasoned runners, they really start making a switch with what they're looking
00:11:23.860 | at about halfway through.
00:11:26.380 | And that's where they more often, more frequently, and are more intentionally adopting a narrowed
00:11:29.900 | focus of attention, when they're in the last couple miles of a run, when maybe their resources
00:11:35.700 | are starting to get more thin, maybe their motivation is starting to fade.
00:11:39.860 | That tipping point in the middle is with any kind of goal where people struggle the most.
00:11:45.000 | And that's when they're doubling down on a strategy that they know to be effective.
00:11:49.100 | So at first, longer-distance runners are not using that narrowed strategy.
00:11:54.460 | They're looking more expansively, because I think that-- well, first of all, distraction
00:12:00.180 | is a thing.
00:12:01.180 | It's useful.
00:12:02.180 | Not necessarily that they're distracting themselves, because people are still trying to hold pace
00:12:05.660 | and jostle among probably a more concentrated group of runners.
00:12:10.380 | But it is a strategy that they use and then wean off of as the race goes through.
00:12:15.940 | And it's particularly effective when we're looking for that last push, the last push
00:12:20.540 | to get over the finish line, when you might be literally neck and neck with somebody that
00:12:24.540 | you're trying to just beat out.
00:12:27.500 | Or when you're most tired, but you know that last push, you don't want to drop off.
00:12:32.580 | And when you want to push through hard through that finish line, that's when people are using
00:12:37.180 | it at its peak level of intensity.
00:12:39.900 | [MUSIC PLAYING]